Show Horse by Bonnie Bryant Page B

phantom jumps. There were cavalletti poles on the ground, and he wanted us to get our horses to jump them as if they were three feet high. He said that would help us know how to tell our horses how high to jump regardless of the height of the jump. It was hard, but I think I understand the technique. It has to do with controlling your horse, and that’s very important at a horse show.
    Carole certainly agreed with that. She wondered why it was that Max hadn’t had her class working that way with cavalletti. A wave of uncertainty washedover her. She’d always been convinced that Max Regnery was the best teacher in the world. What if Mr. Barclay was better? What if Cam was a better rider?
    “Whoa, girl,” she told herself. Max
was
the best teacher in the world. Carole had always believed that. Why should she stop believing it now? Had Cam’s precious Mr. Barclay come up with the wonderful idea of personal goals? Carole didn’t think so. She’d show Cam how wonderful Max was.
    She tapped at the keys of her computer and brought up a fresh screen.
    Hi, Cam! I’m back from class. We were working hard on our skills, too, but not over cavalletti the way you described. That must have been hard work.
    Carole meant it when she wrote it—she just wasn’t convinced that the drills would be all that helpful in preparing for the competition. She continued.
    Max came up with something really good. He’s making us all think about what our personal goals are for the show and then write them down. We’re going to put them into sealed envelopes and open them after the show, just to remind ourselves of what we thought was important for us to learn. And then we get to decide whether we met our goals or not. Isn’t that great? Max is so smart!
    She sent the message, then turned off her computer, and focused her attention on the five small sheets of paper and the envelope in front of her. She picked up her pen. It was a special pen. It was a pen she’d bought when she and her friends had been in New York, staying with Dorothy DeSoto when Dorothy was competing in the American Horse Show. Since it was connected with all those horsey things, Carole had a weird feeling that it had some special power, even though it was just a tourist’s pen with a picture of the Empire State Building on one side and the Statue of Liberty on the other. Every time Carole looked at it, all she could think of was horses.
    She picked up one sheet of paper and wrote “Jumping” at the top of it. Starlight was a naturally wonderful jumper, though he tended to prefer the excitement of jumping high to the structure of proper hunter jumping, where style was the important part. Carole wondered briefly whether Starlight might not have benefited from working with cavalletti the way Cam had. Then she dismissed the thought. If Max had thought that would be good for her, he would have had her do it. Wouldn’t he?
    Carole tried to focus on what was important for her and for Starlight in the Jumping class. Beating Cam. That’s what came into her head, and it was hard to dismiss. She wanted to beat Cam. She wanted to be better than Cam. She wanted Max to be a better teacher than Mr. Barclay. She didn’t care if she got ablue. She just wanted to get a higher ribbon than Cam’s.
    This is all wrong, she told herself. Horse shows were about being the best rider you could be for yourself. That was why Max had them write down their goals. It didn’t matter how good, or bad, the other riders were. It only mattered that you did your best. If everybody else in the class was really terrible, a blue ribbon didn’t mean anything unless you thought you’d done a good job. Carole reminded herself of these things and began the job of thinking about her goals all over again.
    “Keep an even pace and don’t let Starlight jump too high over the low jumps,” she wrote.
    She reread her own words and nodded. Yes, she thought, that was a worthwhile goal—and not an easy one, either,